


the trees were almost budding, the sun was almost bright

by SeaOfBones



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Bittersweet, Flower Dance, Gen, POV Leah, Platonic Relationships, Slice of Life, Yuletide 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21670015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeaOfBones/pseuds/SeaOfBones
Summary: Leah invites the bachelorettes of Stardew Valley to get ready for the Flower Dance at her cabin, and wonders if they're as happy in the valley as she is.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 28
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	the trees were almost budding, the sun was almost bright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cyphomandra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyphomandra/gifts).



Leah wasn't sure whether she felt sorry for them – the girls she'd invited to her cabin, on the last cold day of spring. Leah loved her life in Stardew Valley. The peace in the woods, no sound but the rustling wind. Sketching by the lake or working on her sculptures. But... she'd _chosen_ to come here. And they'd _stayed_.

“Will you keep _still_?” Haley snapped. Leah had let Haley and Emily sit at her workbench for the morning. Haley clutched the eyeshadow brush deftly in her fingers, and Leah wondered if she painted too.

“Ha, sorry,” Emily replied. “Lost in my own thoughts there.”

Leah already knew about Emily's talents. She’d dropped hints last season, not long after Leah had arrived from Zuzu City. On one of the long, dark nights when she'd taken solace from her cabin's winter chill at the Stardrop Saloon.

_So, I don't know if anyone will have told you, but we hold this traditional dance at the end of next season. All the girls wear something white. If that’s not your usual colour… well, come visit me and we’ll work something out. I can make anything, if you bring me the fabric._

Leah hadn't been sure what to make of the offer. She could do a little sewing, here and there, and had assumed Emily was the same. But she was wishing she'd taken Emily up on her offer now, looking at Haley's tightly tailored lace bodice, and the intricately embroidered spring flowers, pink tulips and yellow crocuses, that circled the hem of Emily's skirt.

Emily had clearly been working on her craft for as long as Leah had been working on hers. Being a sculptor, the woods suited Leah. But maybe Emily would be happier in the city, where the fabric was plentiful. Or maybe she and Haley would just be happier not living under the same roof.

“Keep your eyes closed,” Haley said, voice tight with concentration.

Leaving the sisters to themselves, Leah scrunched her hands into the folds of her own dress – a vintage piece she'd picked up at a travelling stall at the Night Market – and paced across the hardwood floor to check on Penny and Maru.

“Thanks again for letting us get ready here,” Penny said, perched on the bed. She was peering into a hand mirror encrusted with fake plastic gems, and drawing a deep coral outline around her mouth with the stump of a well-used lip pencil. She paused, lifting her watery green eyes towards Leah with a half-finished smile. “Home is so… busy.”

Leah didn't say it, but she knew that for Penny, _home_ meant _Pam_. They hadn't spoken much, but she'd seen Pam at the Stardrop enough times. Leah wore a grin, and tried to keep things cheery. “Well, my cabin’s right here. Seemed a waste not to return the hospitality, since you've all been so welcoming. You’re not watching the kids today, then?”

Pam spoke freely and wore her feelings in the open, at least when she was drunk, which was every time Leah had seen her. Penny was the opposite. She stayed silent, an undertow of emotion behind that closed mouth. Leah waited until her expression settled on a restrained smile, and a faint shrug. “I offered, but... no. Marnie will be watching them. She said it would be a shame for me to miss the dance.”

Of all of them, Penny seemed best suited for a quiet, peaceful life here. It was just a shame that wasn't what she had.

Maru looked up. She was using one of the two plug sockets in the cabin for her straighteners. Leah and Elliott had talked about it once, the way they'd both insisted they wouldn't need electricity, or the internet. No distractions, just their art. But Leah liked to listen to the radio while she carved, and Elliott's novel would be more stalled than it already was if he couldn't double-check the meaning of the names of rivers in Gotoro.

“This must seem pretty quaint to you, Leah,” Maru said, smiling broadly.

“Eh, I think it's cute,” Leah replied. She felt like an old woman, talking to Maru, although she supposed she couldn't be that much older than her. It was just that they'd met when Maru had crashed her drone into the ceiling of Leah's cabin so hard it had knocked the transmitter out of line. They'd spent a few hours trying to knock it back down with a broom, and Leah had laughed about how she’d had to stop one of Marnie’s runaway chickens from roosting up there the week she’d arrived. “Why, what do _you_ think?”

Maru shrugged enigmatically. “I've been thinking about its history,” she said. “Why the valley has a festival at this time of year. The seasons change, winter ends, summer comes. Do you think this ever had a practical purpose?”

Leah would be more worried about Maru if she didn't speak like this sometimes. Like Demetrius spoke, when Leah ran into him collecting samples by the forest lake. As if the world was a grand experiment, something to be examined from every angle. Humans, nature and machines all interlocking pieces of the same vast system. It wasn't how Leah liked to think, but she could understand it.

“It always seemed... sad to me,” Penny said distantly. “We dance for flowers that will fall soon. The spring won’t last forever.”

Leah blinked. Before she could answer, there was a hard knock at the door.

“I'll get that,” Leah said quickly.

Maru chattered to Penny, distractingly cheery, and Haley continued to work on Emily's face in tense silence. Leah opened the door, and found herself facing Pierre, his hand gripping Abigail's shoulder.

“Sorry that she's late,” Pierre said, wearing his friendliest shopkeeper's expression. “We had, uh, a delay.”

“I didn't want to come,” Abigail said blandly, blowing a stray lock of hair from her face.

“Well, erm...” Pierre smiled politely, and nudged her through the doorway. “I have to set up my stall, Abigail, so... have fun.”

Abigail sighed, and trailed into Leah's cabin. Leah grimaced, and shut the door behind her.

“So...” Leah said, glancing over her shoulder at Abigail. “Not much for dancing, or not much for dressing up?”

“Not much for either,” Abigail shrugged. She leaned back against the doorframe. Leah watched Pierre pass by the window, and out of sight. “Sorry for all that, by the way,” Abigail added, picking at a loose thread on her sweatshirt. “You actually seem alright. I'm just sick of my dad telling me I need more _girl time_.”

Leah snorted. “It's fine, I don't care. Do what you want.”

But Abigail kept lingering by the door. Leah tried to follow what she was looking at. The other girls, her sculptures, her tools.

“It must be nice, having your own place,” Abigail said quietly.

“It is,” Leah replied. It was, that's why she'd come here. To get away from people. Well, to get away from Kel in particular. _You should try it someday_ , she almost said. She knew it was more complicated than that. “I couldn't afford my own place in Zuzu City,” she admitted. “And this... well, I got pretty lucky, ha. I don't need much, so it suits me just fine.”

Abigail nodded, a faint frown crossing her brow. “You don't miss the city? I can't imagine coming _here_ when you have the choice.”

“I do sometimes,” Leah shrugged. “I was excited when I moved there. I thought it would make it easier to be an artist. With all the money in the city, I thought I was close to the heart of the world. But, ah, that didn't work out.” She tried to catch Abigail's flitting eyes. “But if you want to go, you should. At least to see. You can always come back, right?”

Abigail stayed quiet, mouth tight. “I'd feel bad leaving my friends.” But then she shook her head. “Sorry, I'm not gonna bore you. Where should I get changed?”

“It's fine,” Leah said. “And there,” she added, gesturing to the bedsheet she'd strung across a clothesline in front of the wardrobe.

Abigail marched away, head bowed pensively. Leah looked back out across the cabin, and leaned against the windowsill, careful not to brush her white dress against the dust.

Leah loved her life in Stardew Valley. She couldn't imagine going back to Zuzu City, with its noise and smog and plastic. But seasons change, winter ends, summer comes. Leah had needed change to be happy. And maybe some of these strange, kind, brilliant girls would need a change as grand as hers had been, to leave everything they knew and find only themselves at the end of their journey.

But maybe change could be something else too. Something smaller. A new friend, a bad book, a single perfect sunrise.

Maybe that was what Maru was looking for, the reason Stardew Valley had started this, and still did it. Why the youth cast off their normal clothes and cocooned themselves in unfamiliar white. Hoping that by the end of the day, they would be like tulips grown from last year’s seeds, a new bloom from the same past.

And whatever it was the others needed… well, Leah was already here for the valley. She smiled at the thought, of these near-strangers who could be budding friends.

Whatever it was they needed, Leah might as well be here for them too.


End file.
